You’d think the children of a passionate music lover would have been raised on “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, or at the very least the super kid-friendly “Yellow Submarine”, “I Want To Hold Your Hand” and “Octopus’s Garden”, but no, you’d be so very wrong.

In the annals of time, one’s first introduction to ‘real’ music comes from their older siblings or that random kid who’s somehow (I think we all know how) still in your grade despite being 4 inches taller, 20 pounds heavier and is already sporting the germ of a mustache, and that was true of me as well although it was The Band and Bob Dylan (separately, oddly enough) who were passed down to me as an impressionable young man. Not The Beatles.

I knew enough to appreciate The Beatles and was probably frequently knee deep in their influence but never in their albums specifically. Therefore, my kids only heard them in passing, until we took them to see The Beatles LOVE in Vegas in January of 2014…

and until July 2016 when they climbed down into The Cavern Club in Liverpool and heard a band playing Beatles songs on the same tiny underground stage the Fab 4 once played regularly…

and until this summer when they sat down to watch Beat Bugs on Netflix.

Beat Bugs is a Netflix original series for kids in which every episode is driven by a different Beatles song. The show features more than 50 from the Lennon/McCartney songbook and covers of Beatles songs by the likes of Pink (“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”), SIA (“Blackbird”), Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder (“The Magical Mystery Tour”), James Corden, Robbie Williams, Rod Stewart, Jennifer Hudson and so many more famous names.

Most importantly, Beat Bugs is so well crafted with animation and orchestrated rerecorded versions of some of the greatest songs ever written (or, at least the greatest songs not written by Dylan and The Band). Before your kids run off back to school or maybe in those first weeks when they are adjusting to the structure of a new school year, sit down with them and watch Beat Bugs. Laugh, sing along and fall in love with the music of The Beatles all over again alongside your kids. Then, maybe take them to Liverpool and to Vegas, doing things in a more proper order.

My girls are looking forward to the Beat Bugs episode about this curious lonely woman they met on the streets of Liverpool.

Need the opinion of another fella, a dad with a younger kiddo? Head over to the Poppin’ Bottles to see what they have to say about Netflix’s new animated hit Beat Bugs.